The MFA in Illustration at FIT

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What a day we had this past Saturday! Our newly conferred MFA in Illustration students, grads now, delivered a workshop to junior year students from the High School of Art and Design in New York City, in partnership with the Society of Illustrators in NY. Professor Anelle Miller, who is also the Executive Director of the Society of Illustrators and Chair Melanie Reim, worked with the FIT students to develop the workshop.

Our FIT grads were fantastic teachers, ushering over twenty students though an afternoon of visual storytelling and explorations of media that included clay to make 3D characters, printmaking, color paintings, experiments with black ink and collage. The high school students blew us away. They are super talented, imaginative, smart and were all a pleasure to work with. They created amazing stories and characters. We all had such a fun day!

This program is a complement to the Visual Thesis Exhibition in Gallery FIT at the Museum at FIT. The exhibit will be up through July 3- so do not miss it!

Exit Lines, the MFA in Illustration Visual Thesis Exhibition, 2015, is open in Gallery FIT, the Museum at FIT. Nine illustrators have filled the gallery with works that move and emerge on the walls. Explore Times Square in 3D with Scott Fowler, visit the studios of artists vicariously through the work of Lynsey Hirth, travel on an animated journey through the Museum of Natural History with Han Yuan Yu, groove to rock classics and the interpretations with Jorge Saldana, just to name a few! Kudos to the class and to Professor Dennis Dittrich for leading another successful year towards the exhibition.

For the first time this year, our students have developed arts programming in partnership with the Society of Illustrators and the High School of Art and Design, led by Professor Anelle Miller. We’ll be posting pics from that, too, so come back!

Han Yuan Yu is an exhibiting artist inOne World, Different Strokes Illustration Group Exhibition, hosted by The Taipei Economic And Cultural Office In New York. The show will be on from May 16th to May 28th.

We are also especially happy to announce that Han Yuan Yu is our
2015 FIT Departmental Award Winner! Congratulations on all, Han Yuan!
What a way to finish your studies at FIT!

Our own Cristy Road will be a speaker at the conferences below. Cristy’s voice, through her art, is a force. She urges, “Please come out and support the queer demographic of the comics world, watch us overcome our historical battles with visibility and inclusion via sick publications! +Checkout my website for xtra info on my life: www.croadcore.org“

QUEERS AND COMICS LGBT CARTOONISTS CONFERENCEMay 7th-8th 2015
@Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY
Queers & Comics Conference celebrates, explores and analyzes queer cartoonists and their work. The Queers & Comics Conference will offer two days of panels, workshops, portfolio reviews, and slideshow presentations, as well as an exhibition of queer cartoon art. Ill be participating in the Queer characters of Color Panel, and Memoir: Discovering Queer Identities panel. For more details, please visit http://www.clags.org/queers-comics/

Migratory Patterns showcases the works of nine young artists who were raised in Latin America but have lived and worked in the US in recent years. The exhibition looks to acknowledge that working and exhibiting as artists in the US entails the adoption of a different set of parameters through which these art works are experienced. As Latin Americans, these artists question the prevalence of the stereotypes that surround their practices and the frictions that are created when producing work that is to be read in
both contexts.

Each piece in the show embodies a particular point of view, recreating the complexity of a territory often read through a single narrative. Migratory Patterns provides an opportunity to discuss issues such as immigration, travel, memory, socio-political differences and to open a dialogue in terms of representation between the artists’ home countries and the United States, from a critical perspective.

Adalberto Camperos will be showing his illustrated book Seba York. The work is a result of his experience in NY while he was still a student at FIT. Through his work, Camperos revisits the notion of New York, not as the luminous city that houses Times Square, but as a disenchanted and dry place that overwhelms him as an ex-pat. Through his drawing practice, a broken-hearted Camperos analyses the food truck culture, the chaotic MTA system, the “do it yourself” philosophy, the sophisticated attires of the locals, and the refined art scene.

Current MFA ’15 student Felipe Muhr participates in the show with How to Draw Donald Duck, a large-format drawing based on the Donald Duck comics he used to read as a child in Santiago de Chile and that later became the topic for his written research at FIT. Through his reading of translated, censured and re-edited Donald Duck comic books, Muhr encounters an US American reality that had been renegotiated for the Chilean context. In the spirit of William Hogarth’s diagrams, Muhr replicates backgrounds, objects and graphic gestures found in Donald Duck’s Latin American comics, creating a fictitious manual which revisits the standardized parameter of a commercial drawing form. http://felipemuhr.com

The written thesis is an important component of our curriculum and requirement for degree conferral. The topics have been broad and far reaching and so very interesting. While working on it, our students discover the inner writer, the academic, the researcher, and ultimately, become an authority on his/her chosen topic. And- the papers do not simply sit on the shelves. This month alone, three of our grads are lecturing on their topics, taking part in a panel discussion, in talks with a book publisher and exhibiting at a the SUNY Graduate Research Poster Symposium.

It was a proud day for FIT, and for me, as I saw Scott Fowler mount the incredible poster that he created, speaking to all the wonderful projects and opportunities that have followed his thesis defense last April, on Illustrating Black, the story of the African American Illustrator. One could say that I am a bit biased, but when you see a poster like this, can you blame me?

Even after earning an MA degree in Art History, and a successful Kickstarter campaign, first year student Robert Geronimo wanted more- and we are so glad he did! Now earning his MFA, Robert is busy in AND out of school He has been invited to speak on a panel at the Ceres Gallery in Chelsea alongside Elizabeth Nyamayaro, Director of UN Women and the head of the HeforShe campaign! He will discuss his work on Little Maia and Agent 87; both of which demonstrate gender equality. Call to reserve a seat! The talk is on March 11th. Congratulations, Robert!

We do not know how she does it, but here is Maria, freelancing, writing her thesis, attending classes, school work, personal life AND, check this out- delivering a workshop!

This will be a real treat- we are so happy to others know you and recognize what we know about you, Maria! Good luck!!!

Children’s Book Author WorkshopA one-day workshop led by author/illustrator Maria Carluccio.
September 28, 2014
This workshop is designed to nurture and guide each person to tell his or her own individual story. Students are invited to bring stories to class or they can work on a new story with Maria’s guidance. The class is an extensive overview of the process of children’s books from ideation to finished proposals. We will also partake in exercises and demonstrations created to encourage experimentation with storytelling. By the end of the workshop each student will have developed a story of their choosing plus we will review strategies and resources used to present work to publishers and agents. *If the student is interested in sketching page layouts and/or color art they will get feedback and guidance in that area as well. http://curiousonhudson.com/class-details.php?id=291

READING & WORKSHOP AT UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOISOctober 8th, 2014@University Of Illinois, More Details TBA
Reading from Spit and Passion, as well as performing a workshop on healing through Art. More details TBA!

You go, Cristy!!! We are looking forward to more details and more great news!

If you have not yet seen Chroma, the MFA in Illustration Visual Thesis Show, run over to the Museum at FIT before July 5 for this feast for the eyes. Nine students each explored a body of work that ranges from books to creatures, to graphic novels to digital identity and website. It is just great, if I do say so myself, as a proud chair.